Iron Reign: The Black Coffin Chapter 14 — Escape Route

 

Chapter 14 - Escape Route

Facility K-27 was falling into the earth.

Entire walls split apart while firestorms rolled through collapsing corridors. Emergency lights flickered weakly beneath clouds of smoke and ash as thousands of mutants surged upward from the lower levels.

The giant alpha creature roared again.

The sound alone shook steel support pillars loose from the ceiling.

Chunks of concrete rained down across the extraction chamber.

“We are OUT of time!” Orion shouted.

Darius Vane looked across the battlefield instantly calculating survival odds.

Bad.

Very bad.

The massive Steelborn commander activated his comms.

“All units move to extraction immediately! Heavy Metals establish evacuation corridor! MOVE!”

The squads broke formation instantly.

Gunfire exploded through the chamber as soldiers pushed toward the surface access tunnels while the swarm closed around them from every direction.

Mutants crawled across ceilings.

Zombies flooded shattered hallways.

The facility itself seemed alive now.

Trying to bury everyone inside it.

Cassian Dray grabbed one of the coffin restraints himself and physically dragged the massive black container toward the exit while Gideon Rook shielded the scientists behind reinforced riot plating.

“KEEP MOVING!” Cassian roared.

A mutant lunged toward Dr. Voss

BLAM.

Its head disappeared instantly.

Dex Mercer aka Deadline stood atop a collapsed support beam overlooking the corridor, sniper rifle smoking while combat drones hovered around him like mechanical vultures.

“Left corridor clear!” Deadline called calmly.

Then his goggles flashed warnings.

“Correction. Not clear anymore.”

The ceiling behind him exploded open.

Dozens of infected creatures poured downward through the ventilation systems directly toward the evacuation route.

Deadline sighed.

“Here we go.”

His drones immediately split apart midair.

Machine guns unfolded from their undersides.

The corridor erupted into automatic fire.

Mutants were shredded apart before touching the ground.

Bodies crashed across the steel flooring while Dex fired precision shots into anything still moving.

One bullet.

One kill.

Always.

Beside the extraction route, Hector Grimm slammed an automated turret into place with his cybernetic arms.

“Turret online!”

The heavy weapon instantly opened fire.

The hallway became a wall of bullets.

Shell casings flooded the floor.

Hector’s mechanical backpack unfolded further weapon systems around him while sparks showered across his armor.

The broad engineer grinned beneath smoke and fire.

“Oh, this is my kind of disaster.”

A mutant smashed through the turret fire anyway.

Huge.

Covered in armored bone plating.

Hector immediately grabbed a portable railgun from his back harness.

“Eat industrial science.”

THOOM.

The rail round vaporized half the creature’s torso instantly.

The impact blew the mutant backward through two steel walls.

The hallway behind it collapsed completely.

“Path secured!” Hector yelled.

“For now,” Dex answered while reloading.

Above them

The alpha mutant smashed through another floor level.

The gigantic creature crawled through the collapsing structure like a living siege engine while smaller mutants followed behind it in endless waves.

The Death Reaper attacked first.

The vampiric monster leaped directly onto the alpha’s chest and drove clawed hands into armored flesh hard enough to crack bone.

The alpha roared and slammed the Reaper through a concrete pillar.

The pillar exploded apart.

The Death Reaper rose immediately.

Still fighting.

Still smiling.

The Fairy moved next.

Shadow crows flooded around the alpha mutant in black hurricanes, tearing flesh from its body while the pale supernatural being glided weightlessly through the air above the battlefield.

The alpha swung upward violently

Too slow.

The Fairy vanished before impact and reappeared atop the creature’s skull.

Then drove one pale hand downward.

Black cracks spread across the alpha’s armored head.

The monster screamed.

Even wounded

It kept advancing.

“WHY WON’T IT DIE?!” Rowan shouted while three clones unloaded rifles into the creature simultaneously.

“Because this facility was built by idiots!” Kael yelled back while slicing through zombies rushing the flank.

Darius fired grenade rounds directly into the swarm while Elias stayed close beside Lucien and Einar.

Golden Hound moved like a shield around them both.

Every time enemies approached

Elias dropped them instantly.

Precise.
Controlled.
Merciless.

Lucien looked pale from exhaustion but kept moving.

The Fairy occasionally appeared near him silently before disappearing again into the chaos.

That somehow made everyone more nervous.

Another explosion rocked the tunnel system.

Then

Fresh air hit them.

The surface access gates were ahead.

Moonlight poured through massive reinforced blast doors leading outside into the wasteland.

But the extraction zone had become another warzone.

Transport aircraft hovered overhead while Iron Reign armored vehicles formed defensive circles around the landing zone. Heavy machine guns fired nonstop into mutant hordes pouring from the facility entrances.

Explosions lit the desert night.

The surface forces were barely holding.

“EXTRACTION TEAM THIS IS IRON ALPHA!” Darius roared into comms while sprinting forward. “OPEN THE CORRIDOR NOW!”

Outside

Heavy Metal artillery answered instantly.

MISSILE PODS FIRED.

The desert erupted.

Entire mutant clusters vanished beneath explosions as mechanized exo-suits advanced through smoke and sand toward the facility entrance.

Axel Draik’s massive mech crashed through the battlefield like a walking tank, railgun firing thunderously into the swarm.

“PATH’S OPEN!” Axel shouted. “GET YOUR UGLY ASSES MOVING!”

The squads charged from the collapsing facility.

Immediately the swarm hit them from all sides.

Mutants slammed into armored vehicles.
Zombies climbed transport hulls.
The desert became absolute chaos.

Titus Cain planted himself beside the evacuation ramp like an immovable fortress while Gideon Rook mirrored him on the opposite side.

Two walls of steel holding back the apocalypse.

Raze Volkov stood atop an armored transport laughing maniacally while his rotary cannon turned entire waves of infected into red mist.

“This is REAL warfare!”

“YOU SAY THAT EVERY TIME!” Orion yelled while deploying drones overhead.

A mutant suddenly leaped onto one of the transports

Then exploded apart midair.

Dex lowered his sniper rifle calmly.

“Try again.”

The alpha mutant emerged from the collapsing facility behind them.

Everyone saw it.

Everyone stopped briefly.

The enormous creature climbed from the ruins covered in blood, shadow crow wounds, and railgun impacts.

Still alive.

Still hunting them.

Then the third coffin moved.

Inside the transport convoy.

Everyone froze.

CLANG.

Something hit the inside again.

Harder this time.

The black coffin restraints began bending outward slowly.

Einar stared at it silently.

For the first time

The vampire child looked afraid.

The alpha mutant roared toward the convoy.

The coffin answered back.

And something inside laughed.